Thomas Hübl: Welcome to Point of Relation. My name is Thomas Thomas Hübl and I’m honored and I’m very excited to have this conversation today with Zander Grashow. Welcome to the podcast. We had already many conversations before, so I’m very happy that you’re here. So one, welcome first of all.
Zander Grashow: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. I delight in every conversation we have and always discover more is possible, so thank you.
Thomas: Yeah, me too, me too. I find it always very creative. I walk away with a lot of inspiration and it’s fantastic and I hope everybody who’s tuning in with us will feel similarly. So we had some recently we met at a big conference and so we had a conversation at breakfast and it was very inspiring also talking about specifically this phase, it was post-election in the US but also the phase that we are in globally and what’s actually coming in the next 10 years. So maybe you can speak a little bit to what are the main points that you focus on at the moment that you see and notice and what do you think is important for us in terms of leadership? What’s important for us in driving change, creating organizations and social impact that create change, and then we will unpack that deeper. Deeper.
Zander: That’s a big invitation, Thomas, and a big conversation. So thank you for hosting me and hosting this whole series to look at this having been someone who works in adaptive change for the last almost 30 years now, people come up to me all the time and say, isn’t this the time of the most change we’ve ever had? And it’s kind of not true. I think this kind of need to adapt has been here throughout our entire history. Whether Neanderthals were chasing us for our food and our lifestyle, whether we were in wars or conflict or slavery, there’s been adaptation that’s been necessary the entire time. And so this era doesn’t feel like it’s fundamentally more than it’s been in the past. I will say that the combination of the climate catastrophe and AI are making me believe and others believe that we have to adapt faster than we have before.
And that feels fundamentally different. The speed of adaptation and what is being asked of us right now feels extraordinarily large. And as you often talk about our nervous systems, our ability to hold this much change, this much complexity feels outmatched at times. And so how do we meet the moment inside of ourselves? How do we meet it collectively? And what does that work is the leadership challenge of the next decade. We talk about the poly crisis, the meta crisis, that’s really scary. Even that language, it makes my nervous system kind of collapse. I talk about it with my kids as the muchness of term. I learned from my friend Yana, the muchness. There’s just so much going on. And so the question for all of us is how do we hold and relate to and being in relationship to the muchness, the volume of what’s happening so that we can do something about it.
I can talk at length about adaptation and some of the skills and tools, but it does feel like the systems we’re living under are under significant strain and fragility. When I started doing this work 30 years ago and talking about adaptation, it would take a few paragraphs. It doesn’t seem like that’s necessary anymore. The interesting thing to me is that there’s this collective consciousness that our systems are broken, whether you’re on the far right or far left or in the middle, we know our systems are broken and need attention. And so the question is how do we rise to meet that collectively and individually, which is why I’m so happy to be in this ongoing conversation with you.
Thomas: Yeah, me too. So let’s unpack a little bit the adaptation for our listeners, just to speak a little bit about the concept. Okay. How do we as humans or how does life adapt to changing circumstances and why are we at all talking about adaptation? Why is that not a built in function of our intelligence? That movement adapts to movement. So we are simply adapting and it’s the most natural thing like breathing. Breathing. You talk about breathing mostly when you have difficulties or when there’s an issue with breathing, then oh wow, I should, but why are we talking about adaptation? Why is it not naturally happening?
Zander: Yeah. Well, I think it is naturally happening all the time. I think humans are extraordinary at adapting. The problem is we’re also extraordinary at mal adapting, right? We react to the circumstances and events that happen to us in lots of ways, not all of which are extraordinarily adaptive that lead us to bigger outcomes, healthier wellbeing, healing. A lot of our adaptations are maladaptive that make us smaller, more constrained. So I do think we’re constantly in adaptive modes, adaptive reactions. And then this beautiful question that we’ve also addressed before is where did we learn to adapt from? What are the models and what’s available to us? And so yes, I think we’re constantly adapting, but we’re both mal adapting and adapting and we don’t have always the creative availability to look at solutions that were not exposed to us early on. And so I think that’s why it’s an interesting study and why when we look at how to adapt, we don’t change everything.
Part of this question of how to adapt is what should we hold onto? That’s part of our history, our heritage or who we are. How do we understand what we need to grow into next and what is it time to let go of? And most of us weren’t trained in how to let go of anything, how to let go with that work. I talk a lot of my work about adaptation. One of the critical skill sets of adaptation is hospice, end of life care. How do we let go with grace? Some of the principle ways we’ve known to be and operate in the world. And so it feels to me part of what will happen in this next period of adaptation is letting go of some of the ways we’ve learned to be and needed to be out of our own survival instincts and protection from the past.
Thomas: So what I hear, what you just said is there’s something we preserve, there’s something we need to hospice and there’s something new that we will need to grow into three forces basically. And let’s talk a little bit about, I’ll come back to the hospice. How do we feel what’s worth preserving? Not that everything needs to go, there are things that are growing in life millions of years and the life preserved a lot of the functions that it developed. So when you speak about that part a little bit more, our listeners, how do we feel what’s worth preserving?
Zander: And I think it’s a beautiful question because part of it is exactly as you said, how do we feel into it? Not how do we think into it. And it requires a kind of competence and craft of feeling into our body, of feeling into our emotional dexterity of feeling into our spirit and our meaning-making, right? It’s about creating space to understand what allows us to be in presence and in relationship to our reality. What are those skills, those places, those relationships, those routines that allow us to actually be in dialogue with our own existence? And we can feel that with increasing skillset. A lot of this adaptive work about what to keep is a skill. It’s actually a craft of understanding. How do we be in relationship to what is real and worthy? What creates opportunity for us to really be in an energetic relationship with our worth, our sense of possibility, our creativity. But it’s a skillset and I think we don’t often hone that skillset well enough,
Thomas: But I think that there’s a great point in looking also because sometimes we get frozen when it seems like, oh, I need to let go of everything and restart my life fully new instead of, okay, there are some things that life developed that are here for a good reason and they’re still kind of relational in the context that we are living in, even with the change that we relate to. And so then how do we filter the parts that need to be let go of? So we need to let go of how do we find that part in our life where if you make it very practical, you spoke before about we’ll need to let go of some things right now in this next phase. Maybe you can speak a bit, what are culturally some of the things that we need to let go of?
Zander: Yeah. Well first of all, there’s a lot in all of that. And this question of when we believe we have to get rid of everything, our defense and our protection system reacts immediately. And so then the space to be in conversation with what do we keep and what do we let go of evaporates very quickly. And so I think this question of what is it time to let go of and what is it time to be… hold sacred is part of the work. And I think about that in so many different levels. That’s part of who I am as you talk about with our ancestors and in society. My father is I’m dealing with an aging father. As I come to my own birthday, I’m turning 50, which is big deal for me. I feel in some ways I describe it as being halfway home, but I’m in this beautiful conversation with what parts of my father do I love and want to celebrate and carry in me in the way I embody him and myself and translate to my kids?
And what was a generational difference that it’s time to let go of how we parent or know how to love each other? I think there’s a frame with which you’re asking also in a much bigger sense of what is it time to let go of? And part of what we are aware of is that this dominant system that we’re working under, this capitalist system is very destructive in its extractive nature, not just of the environment, but of our own spirits and our relationships. And so unfortunately, there’s a longer list of things that we might want to look at of how do we let go of from consumerism to materialism to our own sense of identity and polarization. And what hospice in this adaptive work tells us is that we don’t just snap our fingers and get rid of it. Hospice is a deliberate act of being in relationship with those things that are antiquated.
How do we be in relationship with those with others? How do we do that through ritual and ceremony and practice so we can honor the space that it’s had in our lives, what it’s served for us, but also allows us to begin to let go of. And that’s going to be very real, whether you look at some of the ways we’ve lived our lives of throwing things away. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with my children about throwing things away. No, away. There is no way. Exactly. It doesn’t exist. And so the very nature of our productivity and sense of selves, a lot of this is the big conversation that I’m hoping we can be more skilled in having.
Thomas: Yeah, I love this one because it’s very interesting because there was for a long time when we lived in certain parts of the planet and the planet, and then there was one culture here, one culture over there, then there was an out there somewhere, at least somewhere in the no man’s land there was out there. But I think that out there disappeared. So there is no throwing away. But there is also some of the identity structures of this cultural fields don’t make sense in a global village.
And the more data speed we generate and the more networks we generate, the less some of these identity structures make sense. And you spoke about one of the collective identity structures is capitalism. There are others and there are spiritual or religious identity structures, and there are all kinds of identity structures that will need to change to make sense in a village. Not anymore in such a big world. So the third power that you’re speaking to is the new that we grow into. So if let’s say we let go of some of the identity structures or some of the things that are changing that are obsolete kind of. So how do we down, what’s the process of tapping into what’s coming?
How do we feel know, I dunno, how is the inspiration working of what’s coming and how do we identify? There are so many impulses sometimes that seem to be new, but only some of them really make it into a new world, let’s say. And some of them die out before they even make it into a new world. So how do we know where to put our horses?
Zander: That’s an easier question that’s answered in dialogue with other people than ourselves. Just to say what is worth doing is much better answered in relationship with other people and other people who are different than ourselves. I can’t tell you how many good ideas I have that someone has already thought of or tried. I know those moments of discovery, but I think there’s a different ways of looking at that. One is this very simple question of am I contributing to the dominant system that exists now or am I helping to emerge something that’s new and healthier? And thus that little bit of frame can be quite useful to understand how and what we’re doing, right? Because I think part of what is so obvious now is we can work on the dominant system and try and maximize it or tame it or is there something that’s emerging that is worth doing?
And I think that’s where we need some work. The problem with a lot of this, Thomas in my experience is that we don’t have an imagination for what is needed or what is possible. Having done a lot of work in politics and in the country in the last number of years, there’s a kind of despair that exists. And part of the reason I believe that despair exists is because people do not have a future that they see themselves in. And when we don’t have a future that we see ourselves in, we’re incredibly susceptible to fear or seduction or to our old patterns and ways of being. And so I’m really trying to encourage myself of what is possible, what is a future I could believe in and what are the steps to enact that? Those are the ideas that I’m getting more enchanted with and trying to support in myself and others because I think when we have a future, we believe in we’re willing to do hard work, we’re willing to sweat, we’re willing to sacrifice, we’re willing to look at some of the hard questions. And in the most beautiful way, there’s a little bit more room for nuance. There’s no future that exists where we don’t fall in love with a bit more nuance. And so what are the futures that allow for some nuance is where I’m finding more of my own attention and desire going.
Thomas: You’re saying that in developing in myself a vision where I, in which I can see myself as a participant of a future world, then that gives me some kind of strength or agency to establish that around myself and be part of it and work for it or invest in my energy into it.
Zander: Also just gives some passion, right? Where’s the passion and the fire to put in the time and effort and energy. The passion is contagious and there’s less passion available at the moment when people are so heavy and exhausted.
Thomas: Exactly. So that’s beautiful like you’re saying. And I think that resonates also for me a lot where you feel your passion and your fire to contribute. There is some kind of truth to it for yourself. So that’s one indicator. I think that’s a beautiful indicator. And then I’m wondering about, like you said, to invest our energy into stuff that feels healthier than the other one. But sometimes we are caught up in these patterns that we do stuff, even if it’s not healthier, we are bound to the patterns of our past that we partly unconsciously reproduce. So how do I first notice what’s healthier? Because maybe that in itself is already challenging. And then how do I let go of my patterns to really invest my energy into something new that sometimes it’s easier to go with the old than to go into something new. How do you–
Zander: See that? Yeah, I think it’s a hard day for anyone when someone realizes they feel at home, but they’re not really at home, it’s just an old pattern. To learn a lesson twice is one of the most annoying things that could happen, let alone learn it three times.
I think those are really hard days. And I think that question of how do we know what is home requires, as you talk about often some spaciousness, some ability to kind of relax into the reality of what’s there. When we have no space, it’s impossible to metabolize the feelings, the ideas in a more productive way. And so I think that’s part of the key ingredient in this crazy hectic world. How do we create some sanctuaries and space to be able to digest what is possible or necessary for us in adaptive leadership? We often talk about this of getting on the balcony, which is just a phrase of reflection in the midst of action, but it’s everybody else’s job to pull you off of that balcony to get you to worry about what they’re worried about. And so the discipline of getting on the balcony to get some perspective, to be able to interpret and metabolize what is actually happening to me to actually feel awe or grief or any feeling is part of where I think the space needs to be. So I think that’s part of what I’m hungry for and hungry for others to have that space and to be in in collective so that we can depersonalize some of that conflict or choices to be able to address what’s there. I’m not sure I fully answered your question, but.
Thomas: No, it speaks to it. Yeah, it speaks to it. And so you said before one aspect, and I think that’s great for all of us to tune in with is one aspect is passion. Do I feel passionate about my life, what I do in my life? Do I get up with a yes or do I get up with a maybe? And so that’s one indicator maybe to keep looking, not that I have to get up with a yes, but if it’s not like this, then there are ways how to do some inquiries. And then you said the other part is to be able to have enough space to do the inquiry. So to see, okay, what’s actually happening in my life and where are choices that I do or I can take or I don’t take at the moment. And so that’s another indicator I think for us. And then when you look at humanity’s history, one could say, well, so there’s always the interplay between conscious adaptive or conscious adaptation. And some people live their lives in a way. They’re constantly micro adopting their life already before they need to make a big shift because something feels stuck. So it’s like that. It’s also like a skill to be attuned to the future that’s emerging and as you go with it. So you don’t need a crisis to adapt because you’re adapting already voluntarily, let’s say.
But then there’s the other side of it. If we for a long time don’t follow the change that’s needed, often it ends up in crisis. So we miss many signs of change and then there is a crisis. So when we look at human’s history, it seems like often the dam needs to break often in a painful way to allow for a new step of change. Maybe you can speak a little bit about these two ways. One that is attuned, that is conscious, that is constantly curious and looking for where are new possibilities arising. And the one that I’m sleep in my habits until I bump against an obstacle and then it looks like a crisis and that creates an awakening. Maybe you can speak about this too, how that shows up for you or if that resonates at all with you and
Zander: Yeah, of course. And I think the reality is we’ll always have a mix of both. And I think the question is what does it mean to be proactively adaptive?
Thomas: Exactly.
Zander: And the bad news is it takes more than just good intentions. The history of good intentions is a very mixed bag in human history. It takes extraordinary kind of skill and discipline to do this work. I think that’s really what is important because so much of what this work is also has to bump into is privilege. And I define privilege as the freedom to look away. And so if we’re going to proactively adapt, it’s really about a little kid. Where are we going to place our attention? How are we going to get the adults to place their attention on what matters most? And I think that’s where some of this work is in this adaptive proactive, what requires our attention that we’re going to be dedicated and disciplined about, and then understand what is the skillset we need to bring to it, whether it’s polarization or economic disparity or the climate catastrophe that we’re in.
I mean, it’s so easy to understand. A billion people in the next decade will have to migrate due to the climate crisis, but it’s so hard to hold my attention to that, to understand what is my skillset, responsibility and craft that I need. And when we do this proactive adaptive work, I experience it usually falls into three buckets. One, we’ve talked about a little bit, what is the future that we can imagine that can be safer or better or welcoming to a billion migrants from the climate catastrophe? What is the world we’re building? That’s one piece of this work. The second piece of the work is what do we have to dismantle? What are the constructs of this world that we actually have to do dismantling work? We can go into lots of realms of building and dreaming and higher consciousness and plant-based communities and dream about this bigger world.
But the second part of this proactive work is actively dismantling the structures and conflicts and norms that have created these conditions. And then I think the last part, if there’s three of them, is the skillset. What are the skill sets that we need to meet? Ambiguity, conflict, a stranger to do healing and repair, to do hospice. So if I want to engage myself or my communities or leaders in the world with actually doing proactive adaptive work, I have to do those three things. I believe actively, proactively think about what’s a future that could exist? What do we need to dismantle and get rid of and hospice to create that? And what’s the skill sets we need? That’s just on the proactive end. Now I also think the second will always be true. Anytime we believe we understand what the future will begin will be, we will be humbled.
And so when that happens, when we are forced to be reactive, where do we go? Where do we go inside of ourselves? Where do we go in our communities? Where do we go in safe places so that we can meet that moment with the best of us, not the pattern response that exists. And that has to be built in because unfortunately the velocity of what we’re going to have to react to is just increasing. We’re going to spend more and more time reacting to the system failures that exist in ways than I think we’ve had before. So I would love to be more proactive and build communities and relationships. What happens, and the reactivity, I want to have a method and a way that we go into that and drop in. That is a process that can be replicated over time. I think both are called for.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. I love the distinction. And on our love also, what’s the best environment for our reactivity? That’s a great, how do we build ourselves an ecosystem where we can go to deal with the reactivity and not just to not have it, but to have it consciously. I think that’s a great addition. And then I loved the proactive deconstruction and how we identify proactively the structures before they become thems that break. How do we notice those and deconstruct them voluntarily? And also how we deal with the fact that the structure stabilize something in us. Usually the structures that don’t want to change stabilize something in us. They stabilize how we hold fear, how we dealt with the past or some trauma. So when we deconstruct the structures, we also need to deal with some stuff that comes up in the change process. But I think that’s a beautiful delineation of how we attune to the things that are coming.
And we are not looking away because at the be everybody who sees a little bit more of the future will have to stay connected to it because it’s not the mainstream yet. So we need to be dedicated to that process and we need to be dedicated to the structural changes. You said that’s beautiful. So when we take this all what we spoke about now and we look at the next 10 years, so how would you apply this now? You talk about AI and climate change already as some big topics that are rising right now and it will bring a lot of change. So what do you see are, let’s look a little bit into the future.
Zander: Yeah, I mean I think it’s a, I’m reminded of Desmond Tutu who said beautifully, he’s astounded. I’m paraphrasing, which is a thing to do with Desmond, who’s so good with words, but I’m astounded by the terrible and wonderful things humans do to each other. And I think the next 10 years is going to be a lot of that. People are very good at acquiring power and not very good at sharing it or letting go. And so I think we’re going to see the dinosaur clause of our power systems holding on tightly. One of the things I’ve spent the last few years looking at is trying to understand and develop power literacy. I think we need to understand in much more significant ways how power works. What are the structures of power? What are the cultural forms of power, information, power, so we can understand what power we have and how to interact with that.
There’s lots of evidence from most people we talk to that the world will be more volatile, more complex in the next 10 years. So we know that, right? That’s not very debatable. The question is what do we need to do about that? What relationships do we need to be in? What skill sets do we need to have and what amount of effort do we need to put into our communities, not just on the inner world of ourselves and what’s the balance of those things? And so this is a time for me obviously reacting heavily to the Globe’s elections and what it’s choosing as an escape from the pressure and tensions that exist right now. But it feels to me that we need to have a different set of solutions. And to do that, we need to be in creative relationship with ourselves and each other and in honest dialogue about what has created in the book we wrote the first chapter is the illusion of the broken system.
The system was designed this way by power, by systems, and it’s really valuable to understand it. So we know how to engage and mobilize and change it. And it’s so easy to look away from it because exhausting, but it’s also where creativity and opportunity and love can thrive when we actually engage. So I am, as a parent of three children, I’m worried about the next decade actively. I have a dinner where I get people across generations. I’ve been doing this for the last few months talking about it. Everybody’s pretty scared. And so the question is, where do we honor that scare, that feeling, and where do we put that so we can also be in relationship with it, metabolize it and not get stuck there? Because everyone I know is a bit exhausted and some people are exhausted because they need sleep. Some are exhausted because they need nourishment and some are exhausted because they need peace.
And until we understand what people need in those different categories, we’re not going to be able to rise to the creative impulse that created this whole universe and this planet and us. So it’s a volatile time to me about building everything you’re talking about, about the inner world and the inner sciences. But equally so it’s the collective sciences and our systems and how do we honor and engage in those and this beautiful dialogue that exists. Because the more I understand inside of me, the more I hope and want for the world. And the more I see and understand the world, the more it reflects on who I am or who I could be. And this invitation to be in this dialogue that will never end but is the beautiful opportunity for us to be this creative force of the universe or connect to it, I think is incredibly necessary.
Thomas: Yeah, yeah. That’s beautifully put the interplay between the individual and the collective and that the illusion to let go of the illusion of an end. What is, if I give myself to the dance because of the dance, not because I’m dancing until the song finished, I’m dancing. That’s true. So often we are thinking about, okay, I’ll give myself to the dance, but then I’ll get there instead of I’m getting more and more skilled in dancing and I want to dance. I want to live and living is dancing. And so that’s beautifully put. So how can I constantly learn something and deepen myself? And it’s an ongoing movement and we find that movement.
Zander: But I think it’s an art. I think it’s an artistic process. I taught human figure drawing for a number of years, and one of the biggest lessons to me was the difference between illustration and art. As I started to understand it, that illustration was where I knew this thing I wanted to create. And all I had to do is figure out how do I create this thing to get to that outcome? And art is this unfolding discovery process of learning and questioning and humility and excitement and passion. And it unfolds in this way. You can’t predict. And in the complexity of life, I would love for it to be illustration. I’d love for it to be simple and have a simple answer. I can identify in myself the complexity and the exhaustion from it and the desire to go to some simplicity, which is also just the recipe for fundamentalism. This reduction of nuance and complexity to some simplicity. I feel that hunger in myself and can I have the patience and the relationship to dance and music and art to be this unfolding process. The only thing we know is that it’s not going to look like what it is today.
How can that be an adventure rather than a burden and so scary to me and to others.
Thomas: Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love the delineation between illustration and art, that art is a process of finding out and not just of illustrating the world. I think that’s very well put. And also the simplification, how the code, when I feel overwhelmed by complexity, because it’s hard for me to swim in complexity, then I need to simplify. And as you said, that leads to certain movements in our world where that become the defense against complexity is the simplification that’s different than be rooted.
Zander: Yeah, it’s very helpful in parenting teenagers if I had any belief that I know what I’m doing. Right, exactly. But the same is true in politics and we have to figure out how do we engage the other while holding onto some sense of self, while also being porous to discover ourselves. That sounds like art to me. And I know for me that I use music as a way to touch and discover the parts of myself that I can’t yet hold onto, but want to access. Where are the arts the vehicle for some of that? I just think we need more theme songs for this moment and what we’re doing.
Thomas: Oh, that’s a lovely line. We need more theme songs for this moment. That’s a lovely sentence. And so I already identified a few things that we could have follow-up conversations about the individual and the collective movement and how illustration and art, these are great conversations to unpack more because there’s so much more to say in the theme songs like how art and creativity helps us in this time and collectively also what is art in the collective body. But for today, I want to circle a bit back to the challenges that we face. For example, let’s speak a little bit about AI and what you see coming when you look at the current development of AI or central intelligence. Let’s look at this. Well, how do you see this developing? Where do you see the current development and what it’s going to change from at least what we can see? And then there’s all the stuff that we can see.
Zander: Yeah, I mean there are many people who are studying this and I love listening to them. I have the beauty of working with a number of people whose decisions have outsized impact, who run companies and countries and movements, all of whom believe it is going to affect the way we live and work in dramatic ways that is going to lead to some significant shifts in employment and productivity and identity. And I’m concerned about that, not because I think so many of the ways that people have working is nurturing the best of themselves, but when people who have done right and played along with the system then no longer have a place in it, where do they go? And they either can go to a belief system that we should turn back the clock to something that was existed before and be angry that that does not exist now.
Or they could turn to some creative other ways of humanity and connection. My concern is that the second route doesn’t exist as much as it needs to, that those who have been disenfranchised by a system want to reengage it in a productive way, don’t have the vehicles and outlets to do that. And so that’s my concern of where do they land? Where do these good humans and souls who want to provide for their families and lifestyles, where do they land and how do we support them in a rediscovery of what is possible in their own lineage, in their own history of bravery and courage and connection and fortitude? That’s my concern in the next three to five years. We can talk beyond that, but also we have people who are going to oversee these changes who have lots of pressure on them not to take care of the entire system or look at the externalities.
I think AI is going to change our workforce or productivity identity in some significant ways. And what I’m worried about is where the disenfranchised will go in their own stories and their own interpretation and literally how will they spend their time. That’s one piece of it. And I think the scale is coming quicker than most people want to admit or look at. There’s a huge opportunity for us to redefine what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to live in communities? The idea that I could spend 90 minutes in community in every single one of my meals in the way that humanity used to might be possible in a way that this current system doesn’t allow. But I think AI is going to change information, workforce, family systems, remarkably in a very short amount of time. And whereas as we talked about before, where do I go to process that make sense of that inside of myself and with each other?
The speed is fast.
Thomas: Exactly.
Zander: It’s too fast.
Thomas: Yeah. How our nervous systems are able to adapt to the increase of data speed and the speed of the connectivity more and more and more. Where is their limit? What is the limit? What can we allow and we adapt naturally and the limit? And where is the genetic update needed to adapt and where maybe that even is not enough. So I think these are a very important question. So what, do you have any visions or ideas how that could be facilitated that change? Or do you see that the change will inevitably lead to conflict?
Zander: I think it’s inevitably going to lead to conflict. I don’t want to be naive that that’s not going to happen. And the question for us is do we create centers to manage that conflict or do we create centers of recovery and phoenix rising after that? We talk a lot about resilience skills of how do we survive those conflicts, but also now rise skills. How are we going to recover after the aftermath of the dismantling of some of these norms of working? I think we need to put attention into both. The conflict is going to just be there. We’re really good at not addressing the conflict sufficiently. And so the question for you and for all of us is what are the spaces with which we can repair and heal and reflect, and what’s the social fabric that we can go to In the meantime? I’m spending a lot of my time just trying to figure out how can we build social fabric all over the place, whether it’s literally just taking a group of people walking in the park every Wednesday morning, so there’s a touchstone with which people are just in community together. I think we’re going to need that social fabric. So my short-term strategy, which is insufficient, is a massive social fabric strategy of trying to reinforce that. But that’s shortsighted.
Thomas: Yeah, it’s very powerful what you just said. That could be another conversation is how do we maybe proactively work on the potential conflict structures that are going to arise and do we really need to go through another trauma cycle or do we have the power to lead that in a way from the emergence, from the same place that we download AI and download all kinds of new technologies. Can we also download the technology for a social technology to mediate the conflict before it exists? Or do we need to go through the conflict and the trauma then to learn and rise again? I think that’s also a very powerful conversation. And the question is what do we need? What is an architecture? You said building a social fabric is one aspect. Do you think that there are more aspects to addressing the conflict before it’s a hot conflict because we can see and feel the fault lines in the social fabric? I think so.
Zander: Yeah. I think there’s lots to do proactively. I think lots of people are trying to generate a conversation about what does this mean and how do we do it responsibly? How are those forces working against those who are trying to use it for self gain? It’s a race in some of those ways. We have people across talent and consulting and HR trying to figure out how do we do this in a humane way. I think there’s lots of good people doing that work. We’re just not equipped for it. We never experienced the scale and substance of this. And so it’s not the same as the internet. It’s fundamentally different. It’s fundamentally different. And I think that’s the question, when is something fundamentally different? What do we do? Hopefully we gather with the smartest people we know in safe and expansive places to look directly at the hard things that we don’t want to look at and do it with love and music and support in ways that are needed. But I think we’re just learning how to catch up and no one likes to feel like they’re trying to catch up. It’s not an easy feeling to feel behind.
Thomas: But I love when I listen to you and then I see the time. So maybe we wrap up for today soon. But what I love when I listen to you is also to hear your humility and saying, okay, we are all part of it. When I listen to you, I feel that you are part of the same exploration. We are all part of it. We’re all puzzle pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and we all carry a certain aspect of the form that it represents. And I think that that’s how I hear a lot of passion in you to be in the process. So I also hear passion. I hear space to reflect. I hear humility to also be part of the reactivity, to be part of the learning and also to be part of the not knowing. And I think these are all great qualities that I think we all can explore in ourselves. Which am I allowing, for example, that I don’t know where we are going, that I need to develop a skill of finding out that’s an important, I’m not in control of the process. And I think that in itself is a big thing. So that’s amazing. And is there anything for today, any last comments that you think would round up our conversation or anything important that you didn’t say that we say?
Zander: Just because I love our conversations always. I think the obvious thing to say, this is always easier to do together. And so all of us have some deep work to do on our inner world, on our historical, our communities, how much time we’re spending in our ecosystem, how much time we’re building social fabric. So just the sheer just kind of cheerleading to not do it alone.
Thomas: Yes, very much so. Thank you Zander. I’m looking forward to more. And thank you for this conversation. It’s very exciting and we’ll do more. Thank you.
Zander: My pleasure. Thank you.
